In 1896 a man by the name of John Denham Parsons wrote a book on the history of the cross. Since he had been a young man several questions regarding the cross had puzzled him and when he was older he determined to try and and answer them for himself.

The first of those questions was why John the Baptist, who was beheaded before Jesus was executed, and so far as we are told never had anything to do with a cross, is represented in religious pictures as holding a cross.